Entries in kitchen
(9)

When wandering through a local house tour last spring, we stumbled upon one of the most amazing kitchens we've seen in a long time. The kitchen belonged to Jenny, an artist, who also dabbles in interior design with her kitchen decorator/friend, Amy Goldy. Jenny lives in an older home that had a smaller kitchen than she wanted for her family of five. So she went to task to bump it out, giving it more room and light as well as bringing in the white and grey palette she had been eyeing for some time.

The family's eating space is anchored by an 18th-century English gate-legged table, a family heirloom (you know we love heirlooms!), intermixed with stools from Pottery Barn and lit by a Martin chandelier by Julie Neill Designs of New Orleans. The kitchen's custom cabinetry was imagined and brought to life by designer Susan Obercian. We love her use of the marine edges on the marble countertop.

The first thing you notice in Jenny’s kitchen is the serene, light filled room that invites you in to stay a while and eat a fantastic meal. We attribute it to her marble countertops and backsplash (honed statuary). Beyond its amazing looks it's also quite practical with its marine edges (so things don’t go splashing off; quite genius, no?).

The attention to detail didn't stop there. All of the stainless appliances found throughout the kitchen are a combination of some of the top brand names in the industry- Wolf (range), Miele (dishwasher), Sub-Zero (refrigerator/freezer) and Range Craft (hood) - and play off the rivers of grey in the countertops. It gives the kitchen a calm and inviting feeling that was exactly what Jenny was going for.

The luxury of being able to custom design a kitchen is not lost on Jenny and she feels very lucky to have had the opportunity and to now have this amazing kitchen. It is truly the jewel in this incredibly beautiful house. We talked to Jenny about how she went about designing her dream kitchen and her reflections on the process and outcome.

It wasn't so long ago that my kitchen faucet took a turn for the worse. Faced with the task of replacing our busted unit, I turned to my stellar internet sleuthing skills to educate myself on the options and narrowed down my functional requirements. (In case you've forgotten, I was going for a single-hole, high arc, pull-down sprayer faucet with some sort of hands-free technology.) With recommendations in hand from a few of our interior design friends (including this timely piece from Life of an Architect), I finally had it all figured out...

So it’s late Sunday evening and after catching up on my writing, reading and whatnot, it’s time to turn in. But alas, my old, ugly kitchen fan is having none of that. To be fair, the thing has been on its last leg since we moved in four years ago but I’ve been holding out replacing it with the full knowledge a kitchen makeover was imminent.

Like everything about fixing up this house of mine, it turns out that something straightforward (in this case, replacing the kitchen faucet) is not as simple as it seems. There is, of course, much to be considered. So I've boiled down my reading, research and findings in the hope of simplifying the process for anyone who might be so unfortunate as to have a fixture failure, too.

It's no secret I live in an old house. It was built in 1917 and renovated in 1936; there has been little done to it structurally since that time except "internal" updates (wiring, plumbing, AC, etc). What once was a tiny square 10' x 10' kitchen with a butlers pantry has been combined into a "sprawling" 190 sq. foot L-shaped kitchen. It has character…

Moving into the house, my husband and I knew the kitchen needed to be renovated. But limited time and other house priorities have kept us from paying attention to the much neglected and oft-used room. We inherited old appliances that work but not so well (no energy efficiency here!). There is little storage space and no pantry. Plus the room has four windows, three doors, a staircase, an exposed radiator and two posts. It is also the main entry we use to get into our home about 10 times per day. Just call it the workhorse of the house.